Flame and Shadow
by Dwimmerlaik
Summary: An AU vignette from "The Hobbit," featuring a Dragon, a (dead) Burglar, and a Ring... I was in a strange mood.


A/N: A friend asked for an story about dragons, and this is the result. I think she was expecting something from the Silmarillion, but I wanted to be a bit more...original. In my case, that means weird. Sorry.  
  
Flame and Shadow  
  
It was a small thing, slight indeed in comparison to the golden bed on which he now rested - which was itself as naught when set against dragon- hordes of old - and yet Smaug was not one to turn away from the glint of gold. He had caught it up with a talon from where it glinted on the stone floor, and even as he moved to toss it onto one of his vast, haphazard mounds of treasure, something had stirred him to keep it for a moment longer. A small thing, yes, and with no gem or other adornment, and yet it was fair. Almost at once it had begun to feel dearer to him than any other of his shining trinkets, for all that he had never before cared to distinguish between one piece of his horde and another.  
  
It was the thief's, he had decided - or had been, before the strange- scented, unseen creature had suddenly turned visible, and thereafter been far too slow in his flight - and Smaug had thought at first that he had kept the ring as recompense for his stolen cup. But it had not been long before he had found that it was the trick of the lately devoured dwarf-man's invisibility, and he had toyed with it for a time in amusement, wondering if it was perhaps one of the dwarf-rings of old, long thought destroyed by his kin. Doubtless it was a treasure, and a gift, and strange that it should have come thus from a thief...  
  
After a time he found that he did not care whence it came, only that it was his own - even if it hailed from the Black Land and its lord, they had been servants both to a greater lord once, and he did not doubt his strength to claim this Ring for his own, if it came to that. Let the petty wolf-lord rail! Smaug would tear his Tower stone by stone to the ground if so he pleased.  
  
Yet there were other things that needed no more than burning, he thought suddenly. The thief, perhaps, was no more, but there were still those who must have set him to the task, and still could be plotting away on the river. Barrel-rider, indeed!  
  
And then, slowly, the dragon shifted his bulk, long grown accustomed to a lazy half-sleep under the Mountain, and turned towards the gate. He had ignored Laketown far too long, undoubtedly; it was time they had a reminder that there was still a dragon at their very doorstep. Indeed, he thought - or was the thought put into his mind? - why should he stop at the Long Lake? Let him turn east towards the last dwarvish stronghold of the Iron Hills, or better yet, south towards Mirkwood. The little elf-king there was very fond of jewels, or so they said, and his cavern palace was both wide and fair...  
  
He laughed as he slipped out into the night and sprang into the air, feeling stirrings of a mood he had not known for countless long years. Soon he would be fit to rival the mighty worms of long-vanished Ages; Smaug would be named in fear and renown beside, nay, above, the names of black Ancalagon and Glaurung the Golden. Yes, Smaug the Ring-lord...  
  
For the first time he thought of true conquest - not this cheap dwarf- robbing, but such a war that as bring him far more, and leave all peoples thralls to his will. He had been wrought for war long ago in the depths of Angband, and still the old fire burned within him, still he was a foe fit to be reckoned with. And now he was his own lord, and he had gained this last and most precious of all his golden treasures.  
  
With every stroke of his wings he felt himself seeming to grow in bulk and even strength, and his plans for his realm grew also. They said of Gondor that precious stones there were as pebbles for children to play with; let him increase his hoard from the ruin of their white city. North, South, and East he could turn, and why not West, some distant day when all Middle- earth was his? It would be sweet indeed if even that realm that his lord of old had fallen to time and again came under his sway, and all its diamond-dusted cities with it.  
  
Vast Smaug was become when he passed over Esgaroth, and his wings blotted out moonlight and starlight from horizon to horizon. With little more than a sigh of flame he left the town to be devoured by his fires, and winged on, south and east. To Mordor first, aye, that the weakling Ring-maker might fall first, and then what other power east of the Sea could stand against him?  
  
Soon, soon, every land would fall under his flames, and become one great treasure-house, until his hoard was vast beyond an eternity's counting. Let all the world turn to one grim Desolation, with the Dragon upon a jeweled mountain at its center, his eye ever upon one golden Ring... 


End file.
